Kitchen Table Cult Pod

This week in the Book Club, Kieryn and Eve chat with Sarah McCammon about her upcoming book (March 19) the Exvangelicals! We talk about gatekeeping knowledge, rampant anti-intellectualism, and how changing your religious beliefs change your relationships. You can take the church kid out of the church but you can't completely take the church out of the kid.

Follow Sarah:

https://substack.com/@sarahmccammon

https://www.instagram.com/sarahmccammon_journalist/

Buy the book!

https://static.macmillan.com/static/smp/the-exvangelicals/

Kieryn and Eve are joined by Anna Gazmarian to discuss her debut memoir, Devout, which comes out on March 12, 2024.

Growing up evangelical means growing up with shame much of the time. Add to that depression, anxiety, religious OCD, and bipolar, and you're in for a massive struggle of faith and self-worth.

With Devout, Anna unpacks what worked and didn't work for her in her struggle to keep her faith in tact and get adequate treatment for the way her brain works. We discuss tolerating joy, therapy, ketamine treatments, and purity culture, as well as what supporting someone you love with mental health struggles can entail.

Pre-order Devout! https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Devout/Anna-Gazmarian/9781668004036

Eve and Kieryn discoverd the Stay At Home Girlfriend/Wife /Tradwife tiktoks and note their remarkable similarity to the Above Rubies and quiverfull mommy/daughter blogs from the 00s, but with a dash of late-stage capitalism dread as a twist. What's the motivation behind people outside of religion wanting to choose this? Listen to find out!

Notes:

https://www.aboverubies.org/images/stories/magazines/ARMagazine69.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_feminism

https://politicalresearch.org/2021/07/29/why-are-gen-z-girls-attracted-tradwife-lifestyle

https://www.thecut.com/2023/09/tradwife-content-influencers-conservative-ideology.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/fringe-left-alt-right-share-beliefs-white-power-movement/672454/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldorf_education

Kieryn and Eve try to overview everything we know so far about Mike Johnson, explain the general concept of Covenant Marriage, and discuss his wife's humurous counseling practice.

Instead of posting 4 pages of notes, here's one link:

https://tinyurl.com/mikejohnsonktc

Kieryn and Eve talk about Jill Duggar Dillard's book, Counting The Cost. How and why it felt different from Jinger's Becoming Free Indeed, and how difficult it is to escape high control environments when the stakes are so high.

Also, for more info on Christian Zionism:

https://kitchentablecult.com/2021/06/09/s3-e8-christian-zionism-with-amy-fallas-and-garrison-davis/

https://kitchentablecult.com/2021/07/22/s3-e11-christian-zionism-part-2-with-aidan-orly-and-marisa-siegel/

Get the book:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/counting-the-cost-jill-duggar/20124574

Welcome to book club, where Shannon Bonne, formerly known as Shannon Harris, joins Kieryn and Eve to talk about the writing process for her book, The Woman They Wanted.

Shannon talks about embodiment, freedom, and following the joy after spiritual abuse.

Links:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-woman-they-wanted-shattering-the-illusion-of-the-good-christian-wife-shannon-harris/19561719?ean=9781506483160

https://www.shannonbonne.com/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1mJjeRIIxjVT1FAcwlBLUk?si=7J7H4XuHR-GOjBFVhLHcaA&nd=1

https://www.instagram.com/shannon.bonne/

Eve and Kieryn chat about the right-wing extremist pivot to taking down all public education institutions. We've talked in prior episodes about radical right-wing groups taking over K-12 education, and today we explain dog whistles of "clasical liberal" education and how even well-meaning leftists are furthering the agenda to dismantle public universities and libraries.

**Notes**

https://time.com/6309612/christopher-rufo-public-universities-deceptive-essay/

https://www.city-journal.org/article/new-college-of-florida-abolishes-gender-studies

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2023/05/15/desantis-defunds-diversity-programs-florida-universities-gen-z/70220061007/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism

https://truthout.org/articles/will-wvus-draconian-cuts-become-a-blueprint-for-austerity-across-higher-ed/

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/30/west-virginia-university-foreign-language-classes

https://slate.com/human-interest/2023/08/west-virginia-university-cuts-programs.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/wvu-cuts-higher-education/

Kieryn and Eve sit down with Sarah Stankorb to talk about her book, Disobedient Women: How a Small Group of Faithful Women Exposed Abuse, Brought Down Powerful Pastors, and Ignited an Evangelical Reckoning. Covering the origins of the #ChurchToo movement (featuring some friends of the pod!) and how to approach telling stories involving religious trauma in a way that is healing.

**notes**

Buy The book (or a VPN sub then the book if you're in DE)

https://bookshop.org/p/books/disobedient-women-how-a-small-group-of-faithful-women-exposed-abuse-brought-down-powerful-pastors-and-ignited-an-evangelical-reckoning-sarah-stankorb/19462415

Sarah's Website:

http://sarahstankorb.com/

Eve and Kieryn are joined by Aaron and Christina Beall to talk about their experience leaving the christian fundamentalist homeschooling movement and shining a public light on abuse.

Read the WaPo article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/2023/christian-home-schoolers-revolt/

Follow Aaron & Christina:

https://www.instagram.com/apostate_aaron/

https://www.instagram.com/christinabeally/

Kieyn and Eve chat with Shiny Happy People producer Cori Shepherd Stern about how the documentary was made and why it's important to tell stories this way.

Follow Cori:

https://www.instagram.com/girlseeksworld/

https://www.instagram.com/storyforceco/

https://twitter.com/girlseeksworld